——————— 
Ficus. MONOECIA MONANDRIA, ~ 545 
plied the middle of two broad slips to the bulb of a thermo- 
meter, one on each side, so that the bulb was between them 
and found the mercury was raised two degrees, viz. from 
eighty, the temperature of the room where the experiment 
was made, to eighty-two, by a few quickly repeated exten- 
sions and contractions of the two slips; and as the bulb of the 
thermometer was placed in the middle of the slips, no fric- 
tion upon it took place, consequently the increased tempera- 
ture must be owing to another cause. 
A thin slip twenty inches long, and half an inch broad, sus- 
pended in the sun-shine when the thermometer in the same 
place stood at 127, and kept straight by a light weight at its 
lower end, suffered no perceptible change ; however itis like- 
ly that a nicer scale to measure any difference that might 
have taken place, would have detected some little change, 
This substance, the produce of various other trees and 
vines, the most prominent of which are Jatropha elastica, 
Linn, suppl. 422. or Siphonia Cahuchu, Willd. iv. 567; the 
Ule tree or Castilla elustica of Cervantes the professor of 
- Botany in Mexico, and Urceola elastica, Asiat. Res. v. 157. is 
already so well known as to render it unnecessary for me to 
enlarge on its qualities. I will therefore only add that this 
species of Caoutchouc, like that of Urceola elastiea, is per- 
_fectly soluble in the essential oil obtained from the leaves of 
Melaleuca Cajuputi, commonly called Cajuputi oil. 
26. F. laccifera. R. 
-Arboreous. Leaves long-petioled, from cordate to oval, 
obtuse-pointed, lucid, three-nerved. Fruit in axillary pairs, 
sessile, oval, smooth, scaly on the inside. 
Kuthal But, the vernacular name of the tree in Silhet, 
where it is indigenous, and grows to as large a size, as F. 
-religiosa. The fruit appears during the hot season and ri- 
pens in the rains. 
Young shoots thick and smooth, Leaves shernate, peti- 
oled, from cordate to oval, obtuse, entire, thre , firm 
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